Moroccan editor arrested for publishing link to video

New York, September 18, 2013--Authorities in Morocco should release
an editor who was arrested on Tuesday in connection with an article published on
his website, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Police arrested Ali
Anouzla, editor of the Arabic edition of the news website Lakome, at his
home, and seized computers
and hard drives from the journalist's home and the offices
of Lakome, according to Aboubakr Jamai, founder of the French edition of
the paper. The same day, the prosecutor's office ordered the website to stop
publishing pending an investigation. The journalist is being held in Rabat,
according to news
reports. He has not been charged.

Anouzla was arrested in
connection with a news article published on the Arabic website on July 13, which
referred to an article posted on El País,
the leading Spanish daily, that included a direct link to a YouTube video, news
reports said. The video was purportedly posted by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, a North African branch of the extremist group.

The video, which was first published on Thursday, sharply criticized the Moroccan king for despotism and
corruption. It also called on Moroccan youth to engage in jihad. The video was later removed by YouTube at the request of
Moroccan authorities, according to Lakome.
YouTube said it removed
it because it breached the company's policy on violence.

The general prosecutor said on Tuesday that publishing threats from Al-Qaeda
was a criminal action and that victims of terrorist attacks in Morocco had
requested the authorities to initiate a judicial investigation into several papers
that reposted the video. The government said it would file a lawsuit against El País, reports
said.

Lakome has reported extensively on corruption and abuses within the
Moroccan government since its establishment in 2010. Anouzla has been
investigated multiple
times by the Moroccan authorities for his coverage, most recently in
June after he accused the
Moroccan intelligence services of instigating a smear campaign against him.

"Anouzla's publication was singled out for sharing what was readily
available media content," said Sherif Mansour, CPJ's Middle East and North
Africa program coordinator. "The Moroccan authorities, like many before them,
are using fighting terrorism as a tool to go after critical journalists."

The French edition of Lakome also published an article on the
same day as the Arabic edition that included a direct link to the YouTube
video. The website is edited by Jamai, a Germany-based journalist who received
CPJ's International Press
Freedom Award in 2003. Jamai has not faced any official charges or
harassment in connection with his article, he told CPJ.

In an unrelated case, Moroccan
authorities in June convicted Youssef Jajili, editor-in-chief of the
investigative weekly Alaan Magazine, of criminal defamation in connection with an
article he wrote that said a
government official had ordered champagne to his hotel room while on a
taxpayer-funded trip outside the country. The official denied the allegations. Jajili
received a two-month jail term, which was later suspended, and was handed fines,
which he paid, according to news reports.

CPJ research shows that several newspapers have been
targeted in politicized criminal proceedings in recent years for criticizing
the government or for covering taboo subjects such as the health of the king or
the royal family.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This alert has been modified to reflect that whereas Lakome and other sources reported that the YouTube video was taken down at the request of the authorities, YouTube has said that it did so because it breached the company's policy on violence. The alert has also been corrected to reflect that Aboubakr Jamai is based in Germany, not France.